Boat Disaster Leaves Scores of Migrants Dead Off Italian Coast

Boat Disaster Leaves Scores of Migrants Dead Off Italian Coast

More than 80 reported dead, including children, with hundreds still missing

by

Common Dreams staff

Bodies of drowned migrants are lined up in the port of Lampedusa Thursday, Oct. 3, 2013. Tens of people died when a ship carrying African migrants toward Italy caught fire and sank off the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, spilling hundreds of passengers into the sea, officials said Thursday. Many migrants have been rescued, but the boat is believed to have been carrying as many as 500 people. It is one of the deadliest migrant shipwrecks in recent times and the second one this week off Italy: On Monday, 13 men drowned while trying to reach southern Sicily when their ship ran aground just a few meters (yards) from shore at Scicli. (AP Photo/Nino Randazzo, Health Care Service, HO)

Developing...

A boat carrying hundreds of African immigrants has sunk off the coast of Italy near the island of Lampedusa on Thursday, leaving more than 90 people dead with fears that the number could rise dramatically as the search continues.

Coastguards said the alarm had first been raised early on Thursday morning by fishing boats who reported that a vessel was in trouble in the waters near the Mediterranean island that is a frequent destination for people wanting to reach Europe from the northern African coast.

Precise numbers varied but initial reports said the boat, which is believed to have caught fire before sinking, had been carrying as many as 500 people. More than 100 had been rescued, Lampedusa's mayor, Giusi Nicolini, told SkyTg24, but many more were unaccounted for. She told the Ansa news agency that 82 people had been confirmed dead, among them children.

In a statement, the Italian transport minister, Maurizio Lupi, said 250 people were still missing after what he said was a "huge tragedy" that was "not humanly tolerable".

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